Bay Area to return to sunny skies

On a day when the Bay Area still sparkled from what in many communities was the season's biggest rainstorm, Gov. Jerry Brown dimmed the luster by signing a $687 million drought-relief bill and issuing a gloomy warning.

"This legislation marks a crucial step -- but Californians must continue to take every action possible to conserve water, " Brown said in a statement.

The relief package came through just as the storm that hit the region Wednesday with so much promise ran its course.

"It'll be mostly sunny for the rest of the week,'' said Diana Henderson of the National Weather Service in a forecast that was anything but sunny for the region.

Time is running out for the region to catch up on normal rainfall, even though in much of the Bay Area, including Oakland, Concord and San Jose, the storm that swept in last week was the heaviest rainfall of the season that began July 1.

In San Jose, it rained 1.87 inches, more than 50 percent of the 2.67 inches that had fallen up until then. Still, total rainfall for the city is only 40 percent of normal.

In Oakland, it rained 1.43 inches, leaving the city at 37 percent of normal. Concord is somewhat luckier, with 49 percent of normal rainfall, thanks to the 1.9 inches that fell during the storm.

"The storm really didn't have a huge effect,'' Henderson said.

San Francisco got 2.13 inches, bringing it to 44 percent of normal.

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However, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the storm dumped 5.97 inches on Boulder Creek. In Monterey County, in the Santa Lucia Mountains near Greenfield, 12.44 inches fell.

In Santa Cruz on Saturday morning, the rain opened up a car-sized sinkhole just off the sidewalk on West Cliff Drive between Columbia Street and Woodrow Avenue, forcing police to shut part of the street indefinitely.

The likelihood the Bay Area will see any more rain soon is quickly dwindling, with temperatures expected to hover in the mid-60s Sunday.

The bill Brown signed will provide millions of dollars for communities at risk of running out of drinking water. It will use mostly unspent bond money to help areas with infrastructure projects, such as capturing stormwater and distributing recycled water.